Driftwood and Amethyst

CHAPTER 1

S ophie Bird woke to hear the cries of seagulls outside her bedroom window. She smiled to herself as she opened her eyes and looked out of the window to see the bright lemon sun against a sky of hazy turquoise. Sleepily, she sat up and moved to the window where she could see the boarding house’s back garden below, a pretty maze of rose trees, clematis archways and fruit trees. The Sandy Stop Guest House was one in a row of tall red-brick terraced houses on the seafront, each with matching postage stamp gardens front and back, dusted with daisies.

Her bedroom was also a mass of tiny flowers covering the pink walls, pink curtains, pink bedspread, and even pink lampshades—not really Sophie’s cup of tea! But that was all part of coming away on holiday, Sophie had reminded herself when she had seen her room the day before. This was the first real day of her holidays, in this sleepy seaside village tucked away on the Yorkshire coastline.

She tied her dressing gown tightly around her and pulled her chestnut hair out from under the collar. Her toes sinking deeply into the soft rosy carpet, she tiptoed out to the bedroom next door. Sophie and her mum had come away with Aunt Penny and Cousins Danny and Nina. Danny was her best friend, and they had been looking forward to this holiday for months. Looking inside the identical floral pinkness of the room, she was greeted by unmade, empty twin beds. Sophie turned and ran downstairs in leaps of two steps at a time.

‘Good morning, lazybones!’ her mum called out as Sophie entered the dining room. Luckily, there were only a few people already sitting down at the small dark polished tables, but Sophie still blushed, sleepily. The dining room walls glistened white with a grand gloss fireplace on one wall. Sophie’s toes sank once more into the carpet as she sat down and poured tea from a white china teapot into a dainty matching cup.

‘We’ve just been discussing what to do today,’ her mum started, tucking an auburn spiral behind her ear. ‘We quite fancy looking around the old shops. What would you like to do?’

‘I don’t like shopping,’ moaned Nina. She was only seven years old, and Sophie was already fed up with her grumpiness.

‘We can’t stay on the beach all day!’ laughed Sophie’s mum. ‘We thought it might be nice to explore our surroundings.’

‘Oh, leave her, Jen. She’s having one of her days, I think,’ Auntie Penny replied.

Old Mrs Dawson, the landlady of this fine establishment, brought in the first round of breakfast—a selection of small, boxed cereals.

‘Good morning, my dears,’ she said as she walked to their table.

‘Hello, Mrs Dawson,’ Sophie called. ‘How are you?’ Sophie always asked this as she didn’t really know what else to say, and Mum was always reminding her to be polite.

‘I’m fine, thank you, my dear,’ Mrs Dawson smiled. ‘A little stiff this morning, but that’s the price you pay for dancing all night!’

Everyone laughed politely. Sophie chose a chocolatey cereal and poured milk over the small light brown pieces, watching them closely as the chocolate seeped gently into the milk.

Mrs Dawson seemed a really sweet old lady, Sophie thought, the type from picture books and fairy tales of long ago. She had gentle, pale blue eyes and light wrinkled skin that showed smiley lines around her mouth and eyes. A tiny woman dressed in black, she wore her long white hair in a bun pinned at the nape of her neck.

Sophie remembered the day before when they had first met. The sweet smell of lavender had been the first hint of her as they had stood in the entrance hall of the guest house. Mrs Dawson had seemed overjoyed that she, Danny, and Nina had come to her boarding house. She’d been quick to say she had been a schoolteacher many years ago at the village school by the cliffs and had retired to run the boarding house they had come to. She had added that the school was now closed, as there were no children left in the village anymore, at which Sophie had sighed a rather large sigh. Not having other children round her might be a drag, but at least she had Danny and Nina around her. Danny was really funny, and she was sure they would have a pretty good holiday all the same.

‘We’re thinking of going to look at the shops today,’ Auntie Penny said. ‘We quite fancy having a wander off the beaten track, looking at the older shops on the backstreets.’

Mrs Dawson looked quickly around at the children, and Sophie saw a flicker of a frown pass across her face. She smiled, but this time her eyes didn’t twinkle as usual. ‘Oh, you’d be better staying in the main town,’ Mrs Dawson started. ‘Those shops aren’t really very interesting for such grown-up children like you.’ This was directed at Sophie and Danny. Danny grinned at this, but Sophie caught his eye knowingly.

‘I want to play on the sand,’ Nina whined again.

Mrs Dawson walked around to Nina and tousled her hair. ‘Of course you do, darling,’ she replied. ‘Stay on the main streets and by the beach. The children will have a much better time there.’

Sophie looked up, trying to read Mrs Dawson’s eyes as she spoke, but the old lady turned away.

A breakfast followed of warm eggs, sizzling hash browns, runny beans, and tinned tomatoes for Sophie. She turned up her nose at Danny’s plate of pink bacon and speckled sausages, as she preferred to eat just eggs and beans being the vegetarian in the family, but they both tucked in, hungrily. Breakfast was soon over, and Sophie went upstairs to get ready for a typical seaside day out.

Sophie decided to speak to Danny about Mrs Dawson’s comments as soon as they reached the beach. She had noticed something in the old lady’s manner when talking about the backstreet shops—it may have been that there really wasn’t much of interest there, but surely, that was for them to find out, wasn’t it?

The morning was spent in a number of tatty souvenir shops and ice cream stalls along the seafront. Nina ate more ice cream than Sophie thought was possible for someone so short, but Nina seemed well enough on it. At the post office, Danny bought his favourite comic, as was his weekly tradition, and Sophie bought postcards for her three best friends back at home in London. Amrita, Jess, and Harriet were sorely missed and ‘Wish you were here’ was a complete understatement. Without them, she would have to rely on Danny to keep her entertained, as the gang of girls together were a force to be reckoned with back home. She knew she was missing out on bike rides, picnics, and digging for ancient relics in the park